The Holiday Home by Fern Britton
| The Holiday Home by Fern Britton | |
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| Category: Women's Fiction | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: A page-turner of a beach read set in Fern Britton's beloved Cornwall. You'll skip through it! | |
| Buy? Maybe | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 368 | Date: May 2013 |
| Publisher: Harper Fiction | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-0007468539 | |
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Pru and Connie might be sisters but they're as different as chalk and cheese. It's always been like this. Pru is the elder, although not by much and she's a hard-nosed businesswoman who always gets what she wants. Husband Francis was acquired in much the same way that you might employ staff - and that's his function. He looks after Pru and their son Jeremy. Connie, on the other hand, is a homebody - married to Greg (who runs her parents' family business) and mother to Abigail their sixteen-going-on-seventeen year old daughter. There's another difference too. Francis is pure of heart and an honest man, largely unappreciated by his wife, but Greg, although Connie believes differently, is a philandering little sh..
Each summer the families go to Atlantic House on the Cornish coast for the summer holidays and it's where the rivalries between the sisters come to the fore. There's the annual sprint down to Cornwall to get the best bedroom, with Pru inevitably winning by guile if not on time. Their parents live in a nearby bungalow and with three generations of the Carew family in close proximity it should be a wonderful summer, but I'm not giving much away if I tell you that nothing, but nothing is going to be the same come September.
It's a very easy read. You start and before you know where you are you're a hundred pages in. There's not much subtlety about the characters (other than the youngsters, Abi and Jem) who are in-yer-face nice or nasty. Infidelities are blatant, but although you might think that you know how everything will work out there are some surprises in store. I thought the coincidences were piling up a little bit, but the plot is more subtle than the players and there were a couple of twists that I really wasn't expecting.
There's a real sense of Cornwall too, not in long, flowery descriptions but in the feel of the place and the way of life. If you're looking for a good beach read (wherever that beach might be) then this could well be your book - but beware - you'll turn the final page very quickly. I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy of the book to the Bookbag.
It's a couple of years since I read Fern's first book and she hasn't lost her knack for a good story. For more of Cornwall you might enjoy Sea Creatures by Val Harris and it's sequel The Song the Waves Sing.
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